SLEEPY HEAD

So these are the lengths I'll go to lately in order to score a couple of hours of sleep. This morning I had my first ever general anaesthetic.

I was actually having my wisdom teeth removed at the time, but I don't think anyone would have got me to the surgeon in the first place for this particularly jaunty little Thursday outing unless there was at least the promise of a good nap attached.

General anaesthetics are a pretty weird sort of sleep it turned out -
I didn't dream and I had no concept whatsoever of the passage of time, so I did feel a bit cheated out of knowing that I'd slept. After the fact like.... But the words small, mercy, thankful, one should be, come to mind, because I can also now strike off my very extensive list of pointless (though imaginative) worries, (which are part of my insomnia problem in the first place), the one where I might be one of those people who doesn't respond to general anaesthetics and is therefore aware during operations without being able to communicate it - euggggh. I don't need to worry about that anymore because I was definitely unconscious. I know this because in the interim I'd managed to gain several holes in my mouth (although weirdly some where there weren't even teeth ...), which are now stuffed with gauze, a bunch of random stitches, and a really fashionable, if scary, chipmunk-gets-botox-and-collagen-lips kind of look (which, sadly, might help in job interviews) - all without having a clue as to how. Mind you I've had real sleeps when I've woken up in that state too, but not, I think, since I stopped partaking in the 'Westgate Run' in Wakefield, circa 1983.

So now the pain is kicking in and despite being very hungry, I can't face the thought of the inevitable battle that would ensue between my mouth and anything I might try to put in it at the moment. So instead I am off to experiment with the sleep inducing properties of vicodin....be afraid.